Babies&#39; snap-back toy harness and exerciser



May 25, 1965 M. T. MCCOOK BABIES SNAP-BACK TOY HARNESS AND EXERCISER Filed June 25, 1962 INVENTOR United States Patent snaaass BABIES SNAP-BACK TGY HARNESS AND EXERCISER Mildred T. McCook, R0. Box 324, Chester, Va. Filed June 25, 1962, Ser. No. 204,321 I 1 Claim. (Cl. 46-62) them within his reach and control.

Another object of the invention, more specifically defined, is to provide a body borne baby harness as described having in contemplation its use while the baby is sitting, as for example, in a high chair, an automobile seat, or on the floor of the play pen, the tethers comprising elastic cords with loops at the end for the toys, the tethers being of such length that unstressed they retain the toys at a distance within the radius of reach of the sitting child so that being stretchable they enable him upon grasping the toy to oppose his strength to that of the elastic by pushing or pulling the toy thereby getting beneficial exercise, while the snap back function of the tethers when the toys are let go adds Zest to the exercise and makes fun for the baby.

A further object of the invention is to provide a baby harness with elastic toy tethers as described in which there is automatically held adjustment between harness and tether for altering the length of the radius of the arc of swing of the tether.

Other objects of the invention will appear as the following description of a practical embodiment thereof proceeds.

In the drawing throughout the figures of which the same characters of reference have been used to denote identical parts: q

FIGURE. 1 is a view in perspective of a baby harness embodying the principles of the invention;

FIGURE 2 is a plan View, somewhat diagrammatic, showing the tray of a high chair, the harness, and in broken lines an attitude of the childs arm in the act of pulling one of the toys against the elastic bias of the tether prior to letting it snap back to repose position;

FIGURE 3 is a fragmentary sectional view of a detail, showing the sliding tab end of the tether in free and locked positions;

FIGURE 4 is a cross-section taken along the line 4-4 of FIGURE 3.

Referring now in detail to the drawing, the numeral represents the baby harness as a whole, which comprises a body encircling band 11, a one piece member 12 forming the shoulder straps 13, and the tie strap 14 that spaces the member 12 from the body band at the back, the latter having a loop 15 at its upper end through which the member 12 is freely slidable. The members It) to 14 form the portion of the harness that embraces the child and are preferably made of elastic tape. The body band opens at the front, the ends being lapped and joined by spaced snap fasteners 16. This provides step adjustment for both large and small girth. The elastic nature of the tape automatically adjusts the harness for intermediate sizes and aflords a wide range of mobility to the arms and body of the child.

The shoulder straps 13 are connected to the body band at the front by fiat loops 17 at the ends of the shoulder straps that slide on the body band. These may be moved mice.

laterally upon the band to the proper position to keep the shoulder straps from slipping down off the shoulders.

The tie strap 14 is double, being folded about the body band and stitched perpendicularly thereto. At the back it has free edged portions extending downward from the slide loop 15 and upward from the body band, the ends of which are stitched perpendicularly to the body band 11. The tie strap thus provides means by which the harness may be secured by any suitable leash to keep the baby from falling or getting away.

The toy tethers 19, two being shown although the invention would be complete in the employment of a single one, consist each of a tab 24 having the form of a short doubled piece of tape constituting a loop both the upper and lower ends of which are closed transversely, by any suitable means such as shown by numeral 25, so that the opening through the loop is rectangular in shape the line of fold at the top of the loop and the line of union of the sides of the fold at the bottom of the loop, being straight, the close proximity of the sides of the loop above and below the opening adding stiffness to the loop along these lines. Both tabs are strung on the body band at the front, one at each side of the lapped portion between said portion and the adjacent shoulder strap, the lengths of said openings being somewhat greater than the width of the body band so that the tabs when at right angles to the body band are slidable therethrough with some clear- The tabs are generally, though not necessarily, made of the same tape as the body embracing portion of the harness for the sake of design appearance, in which case if elastic tape is employed the tabs will be inherently elastic, but being of double thickness and quite short the longitudinal stretchability of the tabs when the tether is tensioned by the pull of the child upon the toy, is negligible.

A single stretchable elastic cord 21 is fixed at one end to the lower end of each of the tabs. The free end of the cord is folded back upon itself to form a loop 22. A sleeve 23 made from a small piece of tape folded longitudinally freely surrounds the standing portion of the loop being slidable thereupon, and is stitched to the running portion. The sleeve functions as a convenient fingerhold for manipulating the loop, contracting or expanding it to receive or release a toy or other object such as a nursing bottle or spoon.

The elastic cords of both tethers are preferably of the same length and the total length of the tethers including tabs and cords is sufficiently short that regardless of where the tethered toys may be placed before the baby, with the tethers in unstressed state, he can readily overreach them. In other words the tethers are so short that the baby cannot extend the toys to the full extent of his reach without stretching the cords. Preferably the length is such that stretching begins early in the reaching movement. Stretching the ether gives the child pleasant and beneficial exercise. At some point in the course of the stretch he lets go of the toy and it snaps back to him. This contributes the amusement or thrill.

One of the important functions of the invention is performed by the tabs 20 in conjunction with the body band 11 upon which they are slidable. When the baby is playing with one of the toys in such manner as to stress the corresponding tether, it may be noticed that he is not accomplishing a satisfactory amount of stretch of the tether to match the radial sweep of his arm. The tether may be adjusted to provide a greater or less scope of stretch as the case may require by shifting the tab laterally in one or the other direction. This is graphically shown in FIGURE 2, in which the toy in position A, shown in full lines, is at the end of its tether Z1 resting on the high chair tray 24 at the right hand side of the tray, the tether being relaxed. The child grasps the toy and pulls it out to position B, shown in broken lines, the tether being stretched but not enough to give a forceiul Snap back. Theone who observes that this is insufiicient may make a corrective adjustment by moving the tab farther to the right, the direction and length of the stretched tether in the adjusted position being represented by the broken line C. Obviously the increase in scope of stretch permits a stronger pull and results in a livelier snap back.

Whenever the tether is pulled in a direction which cants the tab with respect to the body band, the rectangular opening through the tab becomes tilted so that the opposite upper and lower corners of the portions of the tab that bound the opening at top and bottom come into pressure contact with the edges of the band, at the same time obliterating the clearance between the band and the closed ends of the opening. Further pulling cramps the band between said corners and immobilizes the tab of the tether relative to the body band.

In FIGURE 1 thettethers are shown dangling so that the can-ting movement of the tether tabs is in a vertical plane. This figure in conjunction with the detail shown in FIGURES 3 and 4 is a good illustration of the immobilizing function above described.v However, in general, and particularly when the toys are placed before the baby, as in FIGURE 2, on a horizontal surface such sides of the body band when the tab is tensioned, consequently the part of the body band sandwiched betweenthe plies of the tab is held flat and does not have any room to draw into folds or wrinkles within the loop when the tether is pulled forward, so it remains flat, being torsionally diverted to lie in the direction of the pull, presenting its undiminished width to the cramping action of the contacting oppoiste of the plies of tape that define the upper and lower ends of said opening.

If the pull on the tether were straight forward there 4 the adjusted tether is consistently reliable for all directions of pull in which locking means are necessary;

While I have in the above disclosure defined a practical embodiment of my invention, it is to be understood that the specific details of construction and arrangement of parts as described, are by way of illustration and not to exclude modifications falling within the scope of the inventive concept. I

What I claim is:

Body harness including'a flat body encompassing band, sized to fit a child for whom the harnses is designed, a toy tether, means mounting said tether on said band in such a position so that the length of the tether when unstressed is less than the extended reach limit of the seated child wearing said harness, said mounting means, including a tab of flexible material over-folded to form a substantially flat loopclosely embracing the sides of said band, said tab being circumferentially slidably adjustable upon the forward arc of said band and being closed transversely above and below said band with limited clearance between the interior ends of said loop and the edges of said band sutficient to allow sticking engagement of said tabwith the edges of said band when canted, said tether including an elastic portion unitary with said tab having coupling means at .its free end for a toy, said elas-- tic tether portion tending to stretch in a longitudinal direction whenstressed and tending to return to its, original length when lunstressed,vsaid tether, including said tab, being free to swing radially at any point at which said tab may be ,adjustably positioned whereby the child,

upon grasping tethered toy, may move it to the limit of his reach, thereby stretching the tether so that it snaps the toy back when the toy is let go,'said tab being lockingly canted when the direction of pull bythe child is such as to create a force component approximately tangential to the band at the position pointof the tab.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 355,663 1/87 Price 46-32 1,288,170 12/18 Pick. 2,303,223 11/ 42 Murray et,al.- 272- 2,303,728 12/ 42 Drayton et 211.

2,413,395 12/46 Ware 4632 X 3,087,277 4/ 63 McCook 4632 X RICHARD C. PINKHAM, Primary Examiner. 

